Articles for Geoff Kelly

Nov 3

2021

Modest turnout for Buffalo’s mayoral election

The contest between India Walton and Byron Brown looked like it could be close. It wasn’t. Though it’ll be a while before the write-in votes for Brown are validated and absentee ballots are counted, the outcome is clear: Brown won a fifth term resoundingly, according to unofficial returns from the Erie County Board of Elections. The first hotly contested general election for Buffalo mayor in 16 years — a showdown between ideologies and personalities, drawing national attention and massive infusions of campaign money to both sides — was predicted to drive massive turnout in the city. It didn’t. In all[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Oct 27

2021

Obfuscation from the Brown camp

Tuesday, The Buffalo News reported the departure of Byron Brown’s campaign manager, Conor Hurley, earlier this month. Hurley told The News that Brown’s deputy mayor, Betsey Ball — who ran the mayor’s primary campaign — would “carry the mayor across the finish line” as next Tuesday’s vote drew closer. Ball was blamed by many — Brown donor Carl Paladino, among them — for Brown’s primary loss in June. We decided we’d better find out if Ball was taking time off from her job at City Hall to call the shots on the campaign. So, we reached out to the mayor’s[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Oct 25

2021

Buffalo’s beleaguered municipal finances

The story of Buffalo’s municipal finances under Mayor Byron Brown is divided into two chapters. Chapter One covers the five years before the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority — the city’s control board, formed in 2003 to keep the city from going bankrupt — relinquished its oversight power. In the beginning of Brown’s tenure, which began in 2006, the control board helped the city balance budgets and build up millions in reserves. Chapter Two covers the decade since the control board went “soft” in 2011. It’s a very different tale. Since 2011, Brown has proposed — and year after year[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Oct 22

2021

AOC stumps for India Walton

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — the Bronx congresswoman universally known as AOC — outlined Friday night her reasons for supporting Democratic nominee India Walton in the race for Buffalo mayor. “She is really representative of a positive shift toward working people’s politics here in the United States,” Ocasio-Cortez told Investigative Post in an interview at the Walton campaign’s headquarters in downtown Buffalo. She added that, to advance a progressive federal agenda — climate change legislation, anti-poverty programs, investments in infrastructure — the Democratic Party needs “down-ballot elected officials in executive positions…[who] really are accountable to everyday people.” Like Ocasio-Cortez, Walton[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Oct 18

2021

911 calls down 5%; traffic stops up 48%

You might imagine Buffalo police spend their shifts busting drug dealers, foiling burglaries and taking guns off the street. There’s some of that, certainly. But an analysis by Investigative Post of five years of 911 calls shows that sort of policing accounts for only a sliver of what cops do. More than anything else, they hand out traffic tickets. A lot fewer people have called Buffalo police about crime in recent years, according to our analysis. The number of 911 calls for high-priority crimes — such as shots fired, domestic violence and assaults in progress — fell almost 21 percent[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Oct 5

2021

Big donors to Brown and Walton

Byron Brown’s usual cast of campaign donors are digging deep to support his write-in campaign for mayor, showering the four-term incumbent with $851,000 since he lost the Democratic primary on June 22 to India Walton. Brown’s donors include developers and other companies who do business with the city and patronage employees who depend on the mayor for a paycheck. A number of noteworthy Republicans have also donated significant sums. In many cases, support for Brown is a family affair. For example, four Nanulas — Anthony, Paul, Philip, and Steven — chipped in $25,000 between them. Anthony Nanula is a former[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Sep 23

2021

Comptroller audits fault OTB

Officials at Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. improperly helped themselves to tickets for sporting events and concerts, and CEO Henry Wojtaszek failed to account for personal use of his agency-assigned car, according to a pair of audits published Thursday by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. The audits, which confirm reporting by Investigative Post over the last three years, criticize officials at the state-created public authority for deficient oversight. “The Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corporation needs to clean up its operations,” Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a statement accompanying the release of the audits. “Revenues from the OTB are supposed to[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Aug 25

2021

Paladino disavows Brown

Carl Paladino, stung by Byron Brown’s repudiation of his support, has turned on the mayor, calling him a “mope” and saying voters should stay home on Election Day. In an interview with Investigative Post, Paladino said he was finished backing the four-term incumbent. He said he advised anyone who asked him to stay out of the race. “I got all kinds of people calling me: ‘What should we do?’” Paladino said. “I tell them, ‘Stay home, stay home.’ Let the chips fall where they may.” Paladino claimed many business people shared his opinion and were withholding financial support for Brown’s[...]

Posted 4 years ago